Comic for Wednesday, January 20, 2015

[SirJahar]

On another look at the page, I tried reading Iris's dialog as if she were of a rank that is her culture's equivalent to a Duchess. It actually worked really well, to the point that I don't know where to try and place her in ranking of her tribe. Her lack of diplomacy suggests someone who is not the head of the delegation, but the confidence and authority she seems to carry herself with suggests some kind of rank...

[Jonesy]

Damn. I was expecting Flora to recognize one of the other tigers, or vice versa, leading to some sort of reunion and look at her backstory.

But this? This got me right in the feels.

[Phaing]

Excuse my intrusion, I usually don't bother with forums, but the overly negative reaction here to Iris' character, outright wishing her death even, was kind of weird to me.
For a feral species where the perception of smell is probably one if not the highest developed sense, smelling wrong IS very important. It's like if she had giant tentacles in her face or something. Smelling human'ish is for quite a few animals a reason to discard or attack even their offsprings.
It's like when an anthropomorphic rabbit in a suit would greet you claiming to be just a human just like you. With an idiotic accent too.
Considering that, and that a random stranger outright wanted them to justify their presence (which is also quite rude to be honest), the more amused reaction was rather mild and not really mean spirited imho.
Of course it completely crushes floras pride but half of the main cast was way more "negative" when introduced.

On that note "just stay back while I talk to my people" never works out in fiction.
Back to lurker mode I go! *vanish*

Well, first of all, we all know Flora, and like Flora, and having seen her sparkling personality at work before, it is a little disconcerting to see someone that shouldn't just blow her off like that.

And no, animals don't do all that based on scent alone, but I was curious to see how they would react. "Nasty" is the word for it.
In fact, if deliberately being cruel for the sake of enjoying another person's misery isn't evil in it's most basic form, I don't know what is.

But I see one good thing coming out of this; Flora's "people" are the ones she has been traveling with.
Period.

And speaking of Buts, I see one on this page that is just the perfect shape for a good hard kick, preferably with steel-toe boots.

[Tendo]

I am really curious about the princess thing (which is apparently false) now. I could have sworn she was referred to as a princess, and I wouldn't have come to that conclusion on my own if I only heard that she is "royalty" since that is not the first thing I would associate with someone being a royal. Yet, doing a text search on the comic archives shows she was never referred to as a princess. In fact, the word princess was never even used until recently in reference to Reni.

I would chalk this up to me just mis-remembering or possibly hearing someone use it in error on the forums or something...... except that I was not the only one confused, several people here could have sworn she referred to as a princess before too.

... so just WHERE was this? It wasn't in the comic, but it's unlikely it was some random forum post that people remembered and it stuck years later, especially not with so many thinking it was true, it had to be somewhere many had read it and assumed it be be credible.

I am confused...

How often is it that the courses of history turn on the actions of some seemingly unimportant person? The anonymous soldier whose arrow chances to strike the enemy general, the common civilian who happens across a key piece of enemy intelligence, or even the nameless passer-by whose words spark an idea in the genius who changes the world? True history is a lot messier than our nice clean stories of it make it seem, and depends on the actions of the common and seemingly powerless to a much greater extent than the 'great' and 'powerful' would like.

I would say this is not so clear cut. Some anonymous soldier's bullet might be the one to hit the enemy general, but he and many others in his platoon were ordered to open fire by THEIR general, that anonymous soldier just happened to get the lucky shot. Who is really to get the credit here, one soldier out of a platoon who lucked out, or the general who gave the order that without them none of the soldiers would have opened fire in the first place? Not discrediting the one who made the shot, just saying that the ones above aren't completely just standing on the efforts of those below.

For an even more modern and much much messier example...... say a giant company like Microsoft. Somewhere some developer's line of code is the one that finally fixed some major bug. But he was part of a team and anyone on the team would have run into it, and the entire team would not have been assigned to the bug if their manager didn't assign them... but to go even further, said manager would not have been working on fixing bugs if THEIR manager had not assigned them to that duty.... and THEIR manager would not have been managing several teams working on that feature, one of which was a team for fixing bugs, if THEIR manager didn't request that feature be implemented... so just how high or low do you go in the ladder to "give credit"? The one all the way on the bottom was the one who did it, but without the delegation of the others above they never would have.... yet.... the ones above would get nowhere without the ones below doing the work told of them.

Like you said, history is messy... but it's a LOT messier than you claimed, where it sounded more like you were saying those anonymous at the very bottom are always the heroes who deserve the credit.

Excuse my intrusion, I usually don't bother with forums, but the overly negative reaction here to Iris' character, outright wishing her death even, was kind of weird to me.
For a feral species where the perception of smell is probably one if not the highest developed sense, smelling wrong IS very important. It's like if she had giant tentacles in her face or something. Smelling human'ish is for quite a few animals a reason to discard or attack even their offsprings.
It's like when an anthropomorphic rabbit in a suit would greet you claiming to be just a human just like you. With an idiotic accent too.

Ehh.... not really. On top of what others said about that animals rejecting those who smell different being a myth, that is also just one of many aspects of someone.

Say you ran into a human who had a deep frog-like voice. They looked, acted, when you shook their hand they felt like, and everything else about them was human. Would you say "You are not a human, you are a frog because you sound like one!" and treat them like a frog? And certainly wouldn't seem like they had "tentacles on their face". (I mean, by that argument, they would feel the same about a tiger having the scent of a wolf or fox on them).

The things off about Flora are her accent and that she has Trace's scent on her, that doesn't nullify the tons of other things that identify her as a tiger keidran, including the fact that she still likely smells mostly like a tiger keidran.

[Schrodinger]

I am really curious about the princess thing (which is apparently false) now. I could have sworn she was referred to as a princess, and I wouldn't have come to that conclusion on my own if I only heard that she is "royalty" since that is not the first thing I would associate with someone being a royal. Yet, doing a text search on the comic archives shows she was never referred to as a princess. In fact, the word princess was never even used until recently in reference to Reni.

I would chalk this up to me just mis-remembering or possibly hearing someone use it in error on the forums or something...... except that I was not the only one confused, several people here could have sworn she referred to as a princess before too.

... so just WHERE was this? It wasn't in the comic, but it's unlikely it was some random forum post that people remembered and it stuck years later, especially not with so many thinking it was true, it had to be somewhere many had read it and assumed it be be credible.

I am confused...

The princess error likely spread the same way the name Mekkan did. A user posted it and then it spread around the forums until it became accepted without much basis in fact. It's called the Misinformation Effect. We'd hear that Flora is a princess and then our memory would change to suit this new information despite her never being referred to as such in the comics. It's a meme, an idea passing from user to user as an illusion of truth.

[Napoleon]

The odd thing is they did. In Chapter 7 either Natani or Zen say she's royalty. I think this might of been a early idea that Tom decided not to develop. It either needs to be retconned or developed.

[Schrodinger]

The odd thing is they did. In Chapter 7 either Natani or Zen say she's royalty. I think this might of been a early idea that Tom decided not to develop. It either needs to be retconned or developed.

It was retconned. I just checked the second book and Zen's line, "Jeez, when they said she was royalty, I never imagined her like this." was changed to "Jeez, when they mentioned the girl, I never imagined her like this."

[TinyVoices]

The princess error likely spread the same way the name Mekkan did.

So.

What is the planet's name, then? Originally...

[Schrodinger]

The princess error likely spread the same way the name Mekkan did.

So.

What is the planet's name, then? Originally...

All I could ring out of Tom in my eight years here is that, officially, there isn't one. Mekkan was a name proposed by a fan that happened to stick.

[Dadrobit]

The princess error likely spread the same way the name Mekkan did.

So.

What is the planet's name, then? Originally...

All I could ring out of Tom in my eight years here is that, officially, there isn't one. Mekkan was a name proposed by a fan that happened to stick.

[AndreRhineDavis]

Flora was eventually release from her servitude early and allowed to return to her people. Due of her knowledge of human nature and language, she was chosen to be a representative of the Tiger Clan and a marriage was arranged between her and a prince of the Wolf Clan.

The "royalty" comment plus this comment that she was to have an arranged marriage with a "prince" of the Wolf Clan probably led to people thinking she was made a princess. As people have said, it was probably a plot point that got dropped. And all we're left with is a vague memory that Flora is a princess or something. In fact, I can't find Sythe being mentioned as a "prince" anywhere other than the character page either. All we get is that he's the nephew of the Grand Duke, which I guess is close enough-ish.

As for Flora and Iris, even if Trace can't do anything about it, don't forget that there is an important and powerful Human who would not be very happy that someone has upset Flora. Then again, the last thing Kei probably wants is to start a conflict with the Tiger delegation!

[amenon]

But I see one good thing coming out of this; Flora's "people" are the ones she has been traveling with.
Period.

It could also become an opportunity for Flora to fight for them despite things not being all puppies and sunshine. Doing the right thing for the right reasons is something that crops up quite often in stories. And can be useful in putdowns. "I didn't do this for you, I did this for..."

The odd thing is they did. In Chapter 7 either Natani or Zen say she's royalty. I think this might of been a early idea that Tom decided not to develop. It either needs to be retconned or developed.

It was retconned. I just checked the second book and Zen's line, "Jeez, when they said she was royalty, I never imagined her like this." was changed to "Jeez, when they mentioned the girl, I never imagined her like this."

Strictly speaking, it hasn't been retconned. It was just defined differently in the book canon

Nobody tell avwolf, but I don't actually take these seemingly disingenuous lines just* to be difficult. Obviously, I understand that with very high probability Flora will not turn out to be a princess (or it will be an inconsequential title.) And yet, that's pretty much the impression someone reading the comic will come away with, for the reasons presented... and so that's the position I try to remember to hold. Because if the story unintentionally leads you to the wrong conclusion, that's a flaw in the story. As Napoleon said, 'It either needs to be retconned or developed.'

We here on the forums are maybe... one in ten thousand of Twokinds' readership? It doesn't much matter what we know, in the greater scheme of things. It doesn't really even matter what Tom knows. In the end, the story is what's on the page, and it needs to stand by itself. And so I try to make my feedback reflect the story, rather than That Which Is Known, in the hope it may be useful.

* It's merely my favorite part, to play the Mask of Naivety to avwolf's Mask of Experience.


Oh, and Mekkan is from proto-Twokinds.

[Raydis]

So what we know so far:
-Tigers are in town
-No clue why yet except it's big
-Some are in formal robes, some not
-The ones not are jerks
-We may now have some context as to why #37 is so, 'ahem', affectionate towards a certain guard

[Cecil475]

Real tigers...don't wear clothes.

[Phaing]

But I see one good thing coming out of this; Flora's "people" are the ones she has been traveling with.
Period.

It could also become an opportunity for Flora to fight for them despite things not being all puppies and sunshine. Doing the right thing for the right reasons is something that crops up quite often in stories. And can be useful in putdowns. "I didn't do this for you, I did this for..."

I know, but... its an easy one to forget, for those who least SHOULD forget.


Now, don't get me wrong. A couple of threads back I was the first to defend Captain Kei, and I wold have been doing it sooner if I had been here to do so. Glad to do it, he's only doing the right thing and is pretty damn stubborn about it... poor guy. If this was Game of THrones he'd be dead by now. (yea GODS do I ever hate that show!)
But Iris.... yeah, okay, what she did wasn't anything but a petty bit of fun from her perspective, but that in itself angers me.

No, I don't want her dead, that was from a poster that always does crap like that, and to him I would like to say something-

Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

Real tigers...don't wear clothes.

Neither do real teases, apparently.